First, a test: which of the London mayoral candidates has proposed the
following policies? (a) a Central London cycle-hire scheme, (b) a ban on
bottled water in the GLA; (c) new trees. Or these? (a) new trees; (b) a
cycle hire scheme (c) encouraging restaurants to offer tap water instead of
bottled.
The first lot are (a) Ken Livingstone; (b) Boris Johnson; (c) Brian Paddick
(or Brian Paddock, as I heard a well-heeled woman in a focus group call him
last week).
The second lot are (a) Johnson; (b) Paddick; (c) Livingstone.
If there isn't much to choose in policy terms between the main contenders -
“My vision is of a London where children and adults cycle and walk to work
and feel safe to do so” (Johnson); “We need to accelerate progress to ensure
that we can make it easier to walk and cycle” (Livingstone) - the candidates
for Mayor of London have struck starkly dissimilar personal poses.
Ken has long played the cheeky, chippy Londoner: anti-Establishment, friend of
the ordinary working man, slick, smooth, all sly smiles and newts. His
longevity in the post has, it is true, added a touch of realism to the
public perception of him: “arrogant” was the word I heard most often to
describe him at a focus group last week.
Boris's public persona has been almost the opposite: the bumbling, posh
classical scholar with the dishevelled hair and self-deprecating mannerisms
who was quite funny on Have I Got News For You. The focus-group
participants described him above all else as an eccentric buffoon, albeit a
likeable one.
The two could hardly have played off each other better: where Ken is Tulse
Hill Comprehensive and teacher training college, Boris is Eton and Oxford;
where Ken is slick, Boris is tousled; where Ken is Tube, Boris is bicycle.
For a country that doesn't get the fun of US primaries, Boris and Ken have
been our Hillary and Barack. It's a shame we have no woman to winkle out the
national misogyny that Clinton has revealed in the States, but in the
absence of a female candidate I suppose that Livingstone would have to be
our Clinton. Like her, he suffers the disadvantage of long office and
familiarity, so a lot of people loathe him already. He even managed a public
tear, Hillary-style, when watching a film about teenage murders the other
week.
And Boris Johnson has something of the Barack Obama showman about him. He
doesn't say a lot that is concrete: he just is. And, subtly, isn't - both
Boris and Barack are cleverly making political capital from being somehow
beyond politics; not Beltway; not quite one of them. An offer of difference.
I heard someone at the weekend gravely intoning on the radio that the country
cares about this contest because of London's significance to the national
economy. Rot. It's a soap opera. The weighty commentator had been preceded
by a segment of Ken Livingstone talking about his weight loss! And when the
people at the London focus group I watched last week were asked whether it
mattered who the mayor is, there was a long, long silence before someone
suggested that it was important to have one with “character”. Not policies,
note; character. It's a trend that David Cameron has been swift to exploit,
with his readiness to invite the cameras into his home and his children's
faces, and which Gordon Brown, to his party's detriment (but not his
family's), has not.
Our mini-version of the presidential primaries has formed the focus of
thousands of bar-room opinions way beyond London. From the north of Scotland
to the Sussex Downs, where I live, I cannot remember an election that has so
captured the public imagination. It has become one of those
character-defining questions. Coffee or tea? Cat or dog? Boris or Ken?
And still few people outside the capital (I give Londoners the benefit of the
doubt here) have a clue what the candidates' policies are. Nor are they
cheering for London to give Labour a kicking. No, this is personal: they
hate Ken, or they love Boris, or they loathe them both, strong opinions
based purely on what they perceive to be the nature of the two. Does London
go for the nice but bumbling one who might once have said something racist,
or the nasty but competent one who might once have said something
anti-Semitic?
The candidates are playing up to it, but their characters are in fact not so
different. Both Boris and Ken are a carefully constructed set of impressions
designed to hide the fact that both are monstrously egotistical, arrogant
megalomaniacs. Boris too? Oh, yes. When he went into politics he said that
one of the reasons was because no one ever put up a statue in honour of a
journalist. Mr Johnson has an ego the size of City Hall.
And it doesn't matter; we don't have to like our politicians. We just have to
be confident that they can do the job, which is why I would vote for
Livingstone, whose introduction of the congestion charge was little short of
heroic. He proved that government actually can do something, at a time when
we were all beginning to wonder.
I only note that the personality differences on which most people seem to be
judging them are a façade that hides their almost total lack of substantial
policy disagreements. Just as, in the United States, Clinton's sex and
Obama's colour have enabled them to appear to offer a wildly contrasting
choice when in reality their policies are pretty uniform.
Soap opera has replaced soapbox. And don't we love it.
Nursery stakes
There has been a big fuss over the attack by Ed Balls, the Education
Secretary, on unfair selection processes at faith schools. With more parents
fleeing the state system as admissions codes are tightened, private schools
report record applications.
You may think that Balls is shooting the state system in the foot, scaring off
wealthier parents by cracking down on back-door selection. I think he should
crack down harder. There is still one gaping hole in the system: the
perfectly legal selection of kids for pre-school nurseries attached to
voluntary-aided faith schools. The admissions code doesn't apply: parents
and children can be interviewed, and extra fees charged for places. For
nurseries attached to the leading faith schools, competition is fierce, and
guess why: as long as your child isn't weeded out over the next two years,
pupils in the final nursery class . . . all get accepted into the primary
school. Voilà. Selection in the state system. And nothing illegal about it.
Puppy perfect
I've been trying to buy a puppy - one of those landmark decisions against
which there are so many good arguments that I have given up listening.
Before its birth, it is already the most complicated thing I have ever
bought - more so even than the new sitting-room curtains. Because with a
dog, you have to choose not only the style and colour, and decide whether it
will match your lifestyle, but commit to it for 14 years. In advance! All
decent breeders interview you as a potential adoptive puppy “mother” - one
even grilled me in person. I have answered questions on my lifestyle,
working week, character, nanny's character, size of garden, children,
holiday habits - all that. Friends have added concerns about loss of
freedom, endless walks, poo on the carpet, poo in the garden, the cost, et
cetera. Isn't it odd how much more we demand of prospective dog-owners than
we do of prospective parents?
What is so wrong with selection? Bright kids in an average class are as badly disadvantaged as mentally handicapped kids. A lesson designed for average ability is tedious torment for a bright kid. Boredom drives them to disruptive behaviour, but being bright, they outsmart the teacher.
Eric Worrall, Southampton,
Time for a change.
8 years in pretty absolute absolute power would corrupt my own mother.
Let's see what an Oxford educated man of the people can do.
Boris is bright. Intelligent.
London needs some colour right now.
JF Ellis, London, UK
Few people outside the capital could care less rather than need to know candidates policies. This is a London issue, please keep it to yourselves and don't bore us all with your celebrity Mayor gazing.
crispin willis, cupar, scotland
Re your assertion that children from the nursery schools attached to faith schools gain automatic entry to their faith primary school of choice. This is certainly not true in Oxfordshire where I sit on the Schools Appeal Panels.
Do you have evidence, other than hearsay, for your claim?
Douglas Frewer, Nr. Bicester, UK